


when I find you (I'll find me)

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Magnus is a good dad, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Raphael, Period-Typical Homophobia, Raphael Santiago Has Feelings, Raphael accepting his sexuality in the past and present, Simon Lewis Lives at Hotel Dumort, Simon as Raphael's first love, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 19:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10815273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: When he tells Magnus about the knot in his chest, the unexplained happiness even in the face of a defiant Simon, the way this person (after decades of living without whatever this is) makes him feel weak, Magnus tears up."You love him.""I don't even know him."Magnus squeezes his hand. "You will."





	when I find you (I'll find me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thatbloodyines](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatbloodyines/gifts).



 

 

 

 

 

> _I'm never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already -_
> 
> _when we all know everyone’s life_ _has been hard enough already._
> 
> ([x](http://andrewgibby.tumblr.com/post/40069114609/im-never-gonna-wait-that-extra-twenty-minutes-to))

 

 

Simon's hand finds Raphael's hip in his sleep and he instinctively nuzzles into the elder vampire's neck. 

The bed doesn't feel like turbulent dark water washing Raphael out to sea when he's there. The halls of DuMort are no longer suffocating with Simon by his side. With him, Raphael knows whohe is and that it's enough.

He kisses Simon's forehead and wanders back to a time when his life wasn't warm beds and midnight kisses. 

* * *

 

 

**1955**

Lobotomies, they call them. 

 

Men and women alike are subjected to needles through the eye in order to  _fix_ what nature got wrong. The fortunate survive and go on to play house with a person of the opposite sex. They're miserable ghost like people who haunt the streets of New York and remind him to keep his sinful thoughts to himself. 

Not everyone survives.

It's a hushed topic but given the shanty neighborhood he lives in, people talk. Gossip and religion are what they have going for them and it isn't much but they hold steadfast to them. Mrs. Henson from two blocks over lost a distant cousin to the procedure. She called him a  _fruit_ and said people like that deserved what they got. Raphael felt a part of himself die with every slur thrown at the dead who cannot even defend themselves.

"He'll be grown before you know it," says Mrs. Opal to his mother the Summer he turns fifteen.

Guadalupe Santiago beams proudly at her oldest son. "I'll have grandbabies to kiss on soon enough."

He gives her a cheeky smile he's perfected - a mask.

As soon as the topic changes, he flees with an excuse about chasing after the second youngest in the family. That night, he prays until his knees wobble and ache. He falls asleep with a hail Mary on his lips and the rosary slipping from his hand. 

* * *

 

 

**1958**

Raphael is many things at once and hated for most. 

 

By the time he has calmed enough to accept the daunting fact that he'll have to watch his family die around him, he begins to pick himself apart.  _He_ is what he has for eternity. This body is forever frozen in time. 

That does not stop him from burning his fingers on crosses and bowing in front of churches at night, begging. Was he full of such sin that God himself cast him out? Would he ever know forgiveness? He sobs and blood streams down his cheeks. He has never felt more unholy. 

This is what he knows: 

He's dead.

His kind is hated by people who call themselves shadowhunters. 

He's a monster. 

He never had a chance to fall in love. 

He never gave his mother her first grandchild or bought a house. 

He never cared for that future - it didn't fit. 

He's still sinful. 

Magnus Bane takes him under his wing and rocks him through night terrors. He teaches Raphael what it means to be holy in a body that feels foreign - his own skin and bones as Judas.

By the sixth month mark, Raphael has a vague idea of who he is and begrudgingly accepts it. It's still 1958 and the world hates him but maybe he doesn't have to hate himself _._

* * *

 

 

**1959**

 

By his first death anniversary (in which Magnus lights a single candle and his mama sobs while kissing his cheek), Raphael notices people in his old neighborhood settling down. They're sporting wedding rings straight out of high school and feelings he'd buried flood back.

 

After his mother mentions an estranged childhood friend being engaged -

Not realizing, not meaning to hurt him -

He runs all the way to Magnus' home and falls apart before he even makes it inside. The kind hearted warlock ushers him in and listens as Raphael dumps it all at his feet - the shame, the confusion, the guilt, the  _fear._

"It means," says Magnus as he clasps Raphael's shaking hand, "You're still Raphael Santiago  _here."_ He flattens his free hand over Raphael's chest, over the space where a heart should be beating. 

"But they kill people like...us," Raphael chokes out. Dark eyes fill with tears and Magnus strokes his cheek.

"Then perhaps immortality is a gift. Someday, the world will understand us. Until then, you have me." 

Raphael begins to mindlessly babble about religion, about David and Jonathan from the book of Samuel. How they lost one another and maybe it was divine punishment for not loving as they should. Magnus cradles him against his chest and takes it all in.

When he's out of words, Magnus shares personal stories of love gained and love lost over the span of centuries (both men and women) and Raphael 

   _-listens._

He tucks the fledgling's hair behind his ear and promises there's someone out there (who's possibly waiting to be born) that will love every shade of him. Raphael

_-believes._

* * *

 

 

**2016**

Simon Lewis is nervously making silly noises against one of DuMort's many antiques and laughing. 

 

"It's...it's whatever," he stammers. 

Raphael wants to keep him, knows he needs to save this one.

Logically, it shouldn't hurt when he shoves Simon toward the shadowhunters. Emotionally, he's wrecked in a way he cannot understand. 

Much later when Simon is a moody fledgling living at DuMort, Magnus embraces Raphael and says:

"He's not what I expected, darling, but you found him."

When he tells Magnus about the knot in his chest, the unexplained  _happiness_  even in the face of a defiant Simon,the way this person (after decades of living without whatever _this_ is) makes him feel weak, Magnus tears up. 

"You love him."

"I don't even know him."

Magnus squeezes his hand. "You will." 

* * *

 

 

Simon mumbles against his skin about sleeping in and how it's not fair that even as a  _dead guy_ his body won't let him rest. 

 

His fangs (already extended in hunger that wakes him) scrape against Raphael's neck.

"Hungry?"

Simon answers by kissing over where his pulse should be. 

"Drink," Raphael says, exposing more of his throat. 

He trails his fingers over the muscles in Simon's back, along his spine and the nape of his neck. 

"You sure?"

He asks every time as though the answer might've changed. It hasn't, it never will. 

"Feed, baby."

He feels Simon smile against his neck and every tiny kiss, every lick. The hand on his hip holds on tighter as fangs sink into skin. Raphael shudders and pulls Simon on top of him - he craves skin to skin contact more than blood. Simon moans and buries a hand in Raphael's hair. 

Raphael adores.

Cherishes. 

Puts Simon Lewis up on a pedestal far from those who may harm him. 

Protects. 

He has found his first love. 

He has found himself. 

             _Raphael_   _believes._

* * *

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> info on lgbt in new york around this era:  
> http://nyapril1946.blogspot.com/2011/01/east-side-gay-scene-in-1946.html
> 
>  
> 
> and:  
> http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/26/opinion/a-gay-world-vibrant-and-forgotten.html
> 
>  
> 
> written because ines and I were talking about raphael's experience with his sexuality as opposed to simon's experience - raphael's would've been much more difficult to work through considering the time period. I could've gone a lot darker but decided not to because we've suffered enough with this pairing 
> 
>  
> 
> **don't squint too close at the details and fyi: I fudged the years and raphael's age because reasons**
> 
>  
> 
> (((the quote in the beginning is obviously simon to raphael and it's by my fav lgbt slam poet: andrea gibson)))
> 
> you can read it here:  
> http://andrewgibby.tumblr.com/post/40069114609/im-never-gonna-wait-that-extra-twenty-minutes-to
> 
>  
> 
> title: when you find me  
> by: joshua radin


End file.
